Once they would have been the stuff of science fiction: shimmering levees ofwater that shield cities, or laser beams slicing across water through thenight.

In fact, these are two of six winners announced Tuesday in adesign competition that responds to a real-life threat - scientific projectionsthat in the century to come, the sea level of San Francisco Bay could climb 55inches beyond today's high tide."We need to rethink how we build along theshoreline, but we didn't have the answers," said Will Travis, executive directorof the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, whichorganized the competition. "So we decided to cast the net for ideas."

The ideas can be seen here. I skimmed through a few, and any solution is going to be expensive. This is something that both San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties are going to have to deal with, soon.

It would be interesting to see how much could be saved if aggressive action on climate cut the Bay level increase in half.